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Lot Essay
Executed in March 1930, Stufen or Steps exemplifies the predominant traits of Wassily Kandinsky’s work at the Bauhaus. Ordered and precise, with sharp, distinct lines and forms, Stufen embodies the geometrical form of abstraction that Kandinsky practiced throughout his time as a teacher or, ‘Master’, at the Bauhaus, which had moved in 1925, from its original location in Weimar to a new site in Dessau.
It was during his time at the Bauhaus that Kandinsky’s approach to his art became increasingly more technical and scientific, regulated and considered. In Stufen, rectangles, triangles, regular lines, and a circle are arranged in an abstract interplay of forms, and colour is confined by the edges of the various shapes. Central to Kandinsky’s artistic theory was the relationship between form and colour, and this led him to experiment with the spatial tensions between geometric shapes. Stufen is, as the title suggests, a study of the stacked rectangular forms that dominate the composition, placed on top of one another like steps. The interrelation of forms is further seen in the juxtaposition of the curved edge of the circle, a form that intrigued Kandinsky due to its embodiment of ‘the greatest oppositions’, with the pointed tip of the triangle below it. Kandinsky recorded his theories of this time in his famous treatise, Punkt und Linie zur Fläche (Point and Line to Plane). Published in 1926, four years before Stufen was executed, in this text Kandinsky outlined the function and purpose of art, explaining the emotive power of the individual elements of picture making. At the same time, Kandinsky asserted that the principles of artistic construction should always be counterbalanced by the impulses of the painter’s intuition, fusing the constructivist aesthetic with creative instinct. In this way, Kandinsky created a geometrical language that was imbued with a spiritual, mystic quality that he believed was the defining concept in the creation of art.
It was during his time at the Bauhaus that Kandinsky’s approach to his art became increasingly more technical and scientific, regulated and considered. In Stufen, rectangles, triangles, regular lines, and a circle are arranged in an abstract interplay of forms, and colour is confined by the edges of the various shapes. Central to Kandinsky’s artistic theory was the relationship between form and colour, and this led him to experiment with the spatial tensions between geometric shapes. Stufen is, as the title suggests, a study of the stacked rectangular forms that dominate the composition, placed on top of one another like steps. The interrelation of forms is further seen in the juxtaposition of the curved edge of the circle, a form that intrigued Kandinsky due to its embodiment of ‘the greatest oppositions’, with the pointed tip of the triangle below it. Kandinsky recorded his theories of this time in his famous treatise, Punkt und Linie zur Fläche (Point and Line to Plane). Published in 1926, four years before Stufen was executed, in this text Kandinsky outlined the function and purpose of art, explaining the emotive power of the individual elements of picture making. At the same time, Kandinsky asserted that the principles of artistic construction should always be counterbalanced by the impulses of the painter’s intuition, fusing the constructivist aesthetic with creative instinct. In this way, Kandinsky created a geometrical language that was imbued with a spiritual, mystic quality that he believed was the defining concept in the creation of art.